Nature – first prize, stories. Pandemic Pigeons – A Love Story. The photographer’s daughter, Merel, cowers after Dollie flies past and perches on the balcony before entering the house in Vlaardingen in the Netherlands on 6 April 2020. “She’s still frightened when Dollie suddenly lands on the balcony railing. I hide my smile behind the camera, as I try to comfort her by saying they won’t hurt you. “I thought he was going to attack me”, she replies. As the nesting pigeons keep coming back to our place, slowly my girls have started to appreciate them – perhaps not as much as I do, but it’s a start”. (Photo by Jasper Doest/World Press Photo 2021)

A leg of a “diablito” frog (Oophaga sylvatica) is photographed in a laboratory at a laboratory in the zoo of Cali, Colombia, on July 19, 2019. Colombia is the second country with the largest number of amphibians in the world after Brazil. More than 40% of amphibian species worldwide are in danger of extinction. (Photo by Luis Robayo/AFP Photo)

An endangered desert bighorn lamb leaps in play at a park where bighorns are tempted to leave the safety of their native habitat to eat grass and drink water in the summertime on August 9, 2023 near Indio, California. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)

Singer Halsey attends a basketball game between The Los Angeles Lakers Vs the Cleveland Cavaliers at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, Ca. on January 13, 2020. (Photo by London Entertainment/Splash News and Pictures)

People take photos with the skyline of the central business district in Singapore on September 10, 2015. (Photo by Edgar Su/Reuters)

A diver swims near sculptures during the inauguration of the underwater museum in Ayia Napa, Cyprus, 01 August 2021. At the new Ayia Napa Underwater Sculpture Museum (MUSAN), located in the Pernera area of Ayia Napa, visitors, both swimmers with mask and flippers and divers, will be able to tour around an underwater forest, the first of its kind in the world. (Photo by Jason Decaires Taylor/EPA/EFE)

A highland cow in Purbeck, Dorset shows off for the camera in the second decade of February 2023. (Photo by Kate Fry/Bournemouth News)

A cat is presented during “The "3rd International Pursaklar Cat Beauty Fest”, on October 14, 2018 in Ankara. (Photo by Adem Altan/AFP Photo)